tea lights
by arualms
Summary: five short Ryan vignettes


disclaimer: I still don't own them. Pitty, that.

AN: for brandywine's picture challenge and the letterlove challenge

**Tea lights**

**1**

They had turned the electricity of again yesterday. Ryan had known it was comming since their phone had been disconnected, but a part of him had still hoped that his mother would get herself together in time to remember that the check from social services was not supposed to be turned into liquor. Sometimes Ryan was mad at himself over his own naivity.

Of course she had not paid the bill and now they had no elictricity. Normally, this wouldn't have been so bad, as there was hardly ever anything in the fridge to be kept fresh, but right now it was so hot that the small reprive offered by the fan in the boys' room would have been more than welcome. Ryan sighed and tried to concentrate on his homework.

Trey came back about an hour later. Ryan had no idea where he had come from, it definitely wasn't school, but then he decided it didn't really matter. He was just glad that his older brother was there. He hated being alone with Dawn at night. She would either get drunk complaining constantly about his ass of a father who had left her alone to take care of his brats, or she would get drunk crying to Ryan about how much she suffered and how much she needed him because he was tthe only one who took care of her. Ryan didn't like either option and so he was really glad that tonight he wouldn't be alone with Dawn.

When the door suddenly banged open, both boy's automatically turned their heads away from the tv and towards their mother. The sooner you assess the danger, the better your chances of survival are. They both had learned that lesson quite some time ago.

"Trey, Ryan baby, hey!" Dawn's voice sounded false in their ears, to loud and cheerful. Ryan was almost sure that he could smell the alcohol from where he was sitting. He looked at Trey questioningly. He was the big brother, he decided what to do.Trey's eyes followed Dawn to the kitchen area. Ryan heard the cabinet door open, but the sound of liquid being poured into a glass never came. He closed his eyes in resignation. If Dawn was already at the drinking-straight-from-the-bottle stage, than this evening would be really bad.

"Me and Ryan will go to our room." Trey stated, getting up from the floor. The wierd sounds his bones made while he stood up kept Ryan distracted for a moment, and when his brain caught up with what his brother had said, Trey had already left the room and Ryan couldn't do anything but follow him.

He entered the room behind his brother and wanted to open his mouth to remind him that their window at the moment was a panel of wood that did not allow any light into the room and that with the power out, they couldn't turn on the single lightbulb hanging from the cealing, when Trey lifted the backpack he had carried earlier this day from under the bed.

Ryan closed his mouth again and watched as Trey emptied the bag's contents onto the bed. Several cans of soda, a box of Captain Crunch, a bag of marsh mellows, a pack of cigaretts, a lighter and a box of tea lights were lying on the matress when he was done. "Just because she enjoyes being screwed up doesn't mean we can't have a good evening, right?", Trey grinned at him. Ryan didn't ask where all of this came from, knowing full well that there was no way Trey could have paid for it. He also didn't dwell on the fact that an eleven year old shouldn't depend on his brother's shop lifting skills to get a supper of dry cereal and marsh mellows. Instead, he waited for Trey to light one of the candles before he closed the door to their room behind him.

**2**

When Theresa's mom had insisted that Ryan should come to church with them, he hadn't been able to say no. After all, she had allowed him to spend the night on an air-matres in Turo's room, after helping Theresa to clean his cuts and cool his bruises. If she wanted him to go to church, then he would. He just didn't know what for.

Ryan had never been to church before, religion wasn't exacty something that the Atwoods gave a damn about. Therefore, he was a little hesitant when he entered the building behind Theresa and her mother. The first thing he noticed was that it was darker here than outside. Not only that, but the light was completely different. Casting a look around, he realized that it was due to the colourful glass mosaic in each of the windows, as well as to the light of several dozens of candles.

Right now, Theresa's mom was heading over to the stand with all the candles and Ryan decided that he should just follow her. She stopped in front of the table that the candles were placed on and Ryan realized that it was placed unerneath a statue of the virgin Mary. Beside the table was an open box, containing what Ryan recognized to be a lot of tea lights. The sound of coins falling made him lift his head again and turn to the source of the it. Theresa's mom was putting quarters into a box that was fixed to the other side of the table, then walked over to the box with the tea lights and took three of them out.

Theresa must have seen the question in his eyes, because she steped beside him and whispered into his ear. "The idea is that if you light a candle in front of the statue, she is more likely to listen to your prayer and grant protection to those that you asked her to keep safe." Ryan would have said that that sounds like superstion, something someone made up too make people spend their money on useless tea lights, but he did not like the idea of questioning Thersa's and her mom's believes. Also, Theresa did not seem to be done talking yet.

"Ma does it every sunday before mass. She comes here and prays to the virgin to keep her children save. I kind of like knowing that she worries about us like that."

Now, Ryan didn't know how to respond. Theresa had only got one sibling, but her mother had lighted three tea-lights.

**3**

People in Newport didn't have anything cheap. That was something Ryan had realized very quickly. And after spending several weeks there, one would think he had gotten used to the fact. But some things still caught him of guard. Like the price tag on the box of candles he got out of Kirsten's bag when he helped her putting away the groceries. Who spent 10$ on two simple white candles?

Knowing how much these candles had cost, he couldn't keep himself from realizing how much money must have been quite litterally burned since he had come here (apart from the model home that he still prefered not to think about). The Cohens lighted candles all the time. For simple dinner, to drink a glass of (expensive) wine outside, when they had guests over, when they were throwing a party. Ryan really didn't want to know what all of those candles had cost.

But over the weeks he had come to accept the fact the Cohens didn't do anything cheap. That's why he was surprised when he found the bag of simple tea lights in the cupboard. He had never seen them light tea lights.

"What are you looking at?" Kirsten's question made him automatically turn around to her, the bag of tea lights still in his hand.

"There they are! I had been wondering where I had put them. The old ones are burned down."

She must have seen the question in his eyes, because she added "I never showed you the lights, did I?"

He shook his head and she guestured at him to follow her. "Take the bag with you."

Ryan hesitated when he saw Kirsten entering the Cohens bedroom. This was not a part of the house he felt comfortable being in. But she had told him to follow her, so he did.

"Seth made these in kindergarten." she said, guesturing to a couple of what seemed to be coloured marmelade glasses. "He hates that I won't put them away, but I always tell him that he gave them to us for christmas, so Sandy and I get to decide where we put them."

The glasses were placed in the centre of a wooden sideboard, surrounded by pictures in frames that were probably made of real silver. The glasses didn't match with anything else on the sideboard, bright colours standing out against the black and white photographs and the soft hues of colour of a vase with white roses. The picture on the left glass seemed to be a woman. Since it was more or less a stick figure, Ryan wasn't absolutly sure, but the sunny yellow used to paint the womans hair let him to believe it was supposed to be Kirsten. The man painted on the other glass had to be Sandy, and Ryan grinned when he saw the wild curls that Seth had given his father, and the thick lines that were no doubt supposed to be Sandy's eyebrows.

Ryan remeberd a box his mother used to have, full of the old presents that Ryan and Trey had made for her and their father, sometimes taking one of the pictures out and putting it on the fridge. After his dad had gotten arrested, he had watched her go through the box and throw out everything that had been for his father. He hadn't dared to reming her that some of those had been for both of them and hadn't corrected her when she trashed a picture that had taken him hours to paint for her. After the second move within Chino, she had stopped unpacking anything from the box. A couple of moves later, it had somehow not made it into the car with the stuff they were taking with them.

"Ryan?" Kirsten shook him out of his silent contemplation. "Can you give me two of those tea lights, please?"

He handed them to her and watched as she lighted them, letting first one and then the other drop carefully into the glasses. The light now emanating from them was just as colourfull as the paintings themselves. It didn't match with the room at all, but it was obvious that Kirsten didn't care.

"Don't tell Seth that I showed you these, he'll never let me hear the end of it. He is still outraged that I gave you the album with his baby pictures." She winked at him and he smiled back. Seth didn't know how lucky he was.

**4**

Ryan sighed, asking himself why the hell he had agreed to do this. Why should he care if Summer forgave Seth or not? The fact that the other boy had refused to disclose why Summer was mad at him this time didn't really make matters better. And yet, he had let Seth talk him into helping with this week's "grand gesture". Ryan had come to the conclusion that Seth didn't do grand gestures because he thought something was important (not that he didn't, but that was not the reason), Seth made grand gestures because it was the only thing he was capable of. Seth just didn't do "small".

Still, Ryan wished his best friend had come up with something that didn't involve Ryan's help. He could think of better ways to spend his evening than sitting on the beach, waiting for Seth to text him the get-go. The fact that he thought this whole thing was incredibly cheesy didn't make things better. He roled his eyes at himself, thinking about what his old friends from Chino would think if they saw him like this. Ryan Atwood, sitting on the beach beside hundreds of tea lights, waiting to light them in time for Summer to come and see the giant "I'm sorry!".

This was ridicoulus. He asked himself once more why he had given in to Seth's begging and then smiled when he remembered. Total control of the remote for two weeks. He could torture Seth with sport programms and news instead of The Valley and Justice League. Maybe there was something good about Seth's incredible talent to piss Summer of after all.

**5**

Ryan opened his eyes sleepily and it took him a moment to remember where he was. Waking up in a bed that was not his own was always a little strange. The soft breath puffing against his neck and the weight and heat of the body that was half sprawled across him brought the memory back pretty fast, and he didn't even try to fight his grin.

When Sahra had asked him to come over to her place so they could study together, he hadn't been absolutely sure what she wanted. They had been flirting with each other for several weeks, but after far to much time spend trying to figure out the mystery that was Marissa cooper's brain, Ryan had lost his confidence in his abilty to know what girls or women wanted from him.

That was why he had actually brought his books, fully prepared to spend the evening trying to figure out difficult equations and trying not to throw caution into the wind and just kiss the girl. However, as soon as she had opened the door, he had known that she had other plans, plans that in his mind were far favourable to learning. A girl didn't dress up like that for a study date. (And he had thought that before had seen the lingery she was wearing underneath.)

Entering her doorm room, whatever doubts he might still have had were pushed away permanately when he had seen the room. Boxes of take out had been sat on the small table, though in the diffuse light, he he hadn't really been able to make out what they contained. He had let his eyes wander around the room, taking in the myriad of tea lights placed on every available surface and finally letting his gaze rest on Sahra's face. She had grinned at him. "I figured we had spent enough time testing the waters." Ryan had always liked girls that were confident.

"Hey." Sahra's voice tore him out of his memories. "Hey." he smiled back at her, lifting his hand to thread his fingers through her tousled bed hair. She sighed contendly, rubbing her nose against his chest, then lifted her head back up. "We don't really have to go to class today, right?" He decided that a verbal answer wasn't necessary and kissed her instead.

_Tell me what you think, please_


End file.
